Download or read book A Handmade Life written by William Coperthwaite and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2007-03-07 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Coperthwaite is a teacher, builder, designer, and writer who for many years hasexplored the possibilities of true simplicity on a homestead on the north coast of Maine. In the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and Helen and Scott Nearing, Coperthwaite has fashioned a livelihood of integrity and completeness-buying almost nothing, providing for his own needs, and serving as a guide and companion to hundreds of apprentices drawn to his unique way of being. A Handmade Life carries Coperthwaite's ongoing experiments with hand tools, hand-grown and gathered food, and handmade shelter, clothing, and furnishings out into the world to challenge and inspire. His writing is both philosophical and practical, exploring themes of beauty, work, education, and design while giving instruction on the hand-crafting of the necessities of life. Richly illustrated with luminous color photographs by Peter Forbes, the book is a moving and inspirational testament to a new practice of old ways of life.
Download or read book Complexity and Spatial Networks written by Aura Reggiani and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-08-14 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complex systems analysis has become a fascinating topic in modern research on non-linear dynamics, not only in the physical sciences but also in the life sciences and the social sciences. After the era of bifurcation theory, chaos theory, syn- getics, resilience analysis, network dynamics and evolutionary thinking, currently we observe an increasing interest in critical transitions of dynamic real-world systems in many disciplines, such as demography, biology, psychology, economics, earth sciences, geology, seismology, medical sciences, and so on. The relevance of this approach is clearly re?ected in such phenomena as traf?c congestion, ?nancial crisis, ethnic con?icts, eco-system breakdown, health failures, etc. This has prompted a world-wide interest in complex systems. Geographical space is one of the playgrounds for complex dynamics, as is witnessed by population movements, transport ?ows, retail developments, urban expansion, lowland ?ooding and so forth. All such dynamic phenomena have one feature in common: the low predictability of uncertain interrelated events occurring at different interconnected spatio-temporal scale levels and often originating from different disciplinary backgrounds. The study of the associated non-linear (fast and slow) dynamic transition paths calls for a joint research effort of scientists from different disciplines in order to understand the nature, the roots and the con- quences of unexpected or unpredictable changes in complex spatial systems.
Download or read book Caught in the Current written by Jay Bookman and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-08-13 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science tells us what is. Technology tells us what can be. But neither can tell us what ought to be. As a science and technology journalist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jay Bookman has witnessed some of the most remarkable and exciting advances in human history-supercomputers, cyborgs, genetic engineering. Like the rest of us, though, he has also watched as ever-more sophisticated tools intended to make our lives easier and less stressful have often done the opposite. The problem, he says, lies not in our tools, but in ourselves. In Caught in the Current, Bookman and four friends embark on their annual rafting trip down the Deschutes River in central Oregon. Leaving cell phones, pagers, and laptops behind, they float for 60 miles through stark desert canyons, whitewater rapids and some of the best trout-fishing in America. But this is also a journey of another sort, an exploration of the many ways in which technology has altered how human beings experience each other and the world around them. We live today in the most connected society in history, and yet our sense of isolation has never been more acute. We communicate megabytes of data, but somehow knowledge or wisdom still escape us. The cell phone is our tool, our servant, but it is also a barbaric interloper that we have not yet dared to tame. In his finely tuned prose, Bookman contrasts the rhythm of life on the Deschutes with the increasingly fragmented and chaotic pace of our electronic age and reveals how the momentum of technology often breaks the flow of life. Our time is segmented into tasks to be completed; our personal interactions often take place behind a flashing cursor; our focus is "faster," not "better." Transfixed by the marvels of technology, we've overlooked its profound impact on our community. Neither a technophobe nor Luddite, Bookman accepts that technological change is inevitable and desirable. But in Caught in the Current, he also warns that we should not become passive subjects of that change, allowing ourselves to be tossed like helpless driftwood in the current.
Download or read book The Laws of Simplicity written by John Maeda and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2006-07-07 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten laws of simplicity for business, technology, and design that teach us how to need less but get more. Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We're rebelling against technology that's too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte "read me" manuals. The iPod's clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves caught up in the simplicity paradox: we want something that's simple and easy to use, but also does all the complex things we might ever want it to do. In The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design—guidelines for needing less and actually getting more. Maeda—a professor in MIT's Media Lab and a world-renowned graphic designer—explores the question of how we can redefine the notion of "improved" so that it doesn't always mean something more, something added on. Maeda's first law of simplicity is "Reduce." It's not necessarily beneficial to add technology features just because we can. And the features that we do have must be organized (Law 2) in a sensible hierarchy so users aren't distracted by features and functions they don't need. But simplicity is not less just for the sake of less. Skip ahead to Law 9: "Failure: Accept the fact that some things can never be made simple." Maeda's concise guide to simplicity in the digital age shows us how this idea can be a cornerstone of organizations and their products—how it can drive both business and technology. We can learn to simplify without sacrificing comfort and meaning, and we can achieve the balance described in Law 10. This law, which Maeda calls "The One," tells us: "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful."
Download or read book Timeless Reality written by Victor J. Stenger and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2009-12-02 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A professor of physics and astronomy studies a theory that time is reversible, and explains how physicists have generally been reluctant to accept the reversibility of time because of the implied causal paradoxes. Illustrations.
Download or read book Renewable written by Eileen Flanagan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At age forty-nine, Eileen Flanagan had an aching feeling that she wasn’t living up to her potential—or her youthful ideals. A former Peace Corps volunteer who’d once loved the simplicity of living in a mud hut in Botswana, she now had too many e-mails in her inbox and a basement full of stuff she didn’t need. Increasingly worried about her children’s future on a warming planet, she felt unable to make a difference—until she joined a band of singing Quaker activists who helped her find her voice and her power. Renewable: One Woman’s Search for Simplicity, Faithfulness, and Hope is the story of a spiritual writer and mother of two who, while trying to change the world, unexpectedly finds the courage to change her life. With wit and wisdom, Eileen Flanagan shares the engaging journey that brings her from midlife spiritual crisis to fulfillment and hope—and, briefly, to jail.
Download or read book Finding Simplicity written by Amber Parker and published by Carpenter's Son Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life is complicated. Even in the moments when our circumstances seem relatively smooth, a look at the world around us reveals problems far beyond our ability to solve. Amid this chaos, most of us are longing for a simpler life. When Jesus walked the earth, He, too, faced a complicated world. But, instead of surrendering to its chaotic pull, He modeled a life of simplicity. This same type of purposeful life Jesus lived, He offers to us. Finding Simplicity walks through the book of James, exploring how we can follow Jesus' example and put His teachings into practice. James goes straight to the heart of the issues we face challenging us to choose simplicity over complexity, exercise God's wisdom, and discover the joy in every day.
Download or read book Simplicity and Complexity in Games of the Intellect written by Lawrence B. Slobodkin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If it were necessary, for some curious legal reason, to draw a clear line between human and nonhuman--for example, if a group of australopithecines were to appear and one had to decide if they were to be protected by Fair Employment Laws or by the ASPCA--I would welcome them as humans if I knew that they were seriously concerned about how to bury their dead." In this witty and wise way, Lawrence Slobodkin takes us on a spirited quest for the multiple meanings of simplicity in all facets of life. Slobodkin begins at the beginning, with a consideration of how simplicity came into play in the development of religious doctrines. He nimbly moves on to the arts--where he ranges freely from dining to painting--and then focuses more sharply on the role of simplicity in science. Here we witness the historical beginnings of modern science as a search for the fewest number of terms, the smallest number of assumptions, or the lowest exponents, while still meeting criteria for descriptive accuracy. The result may be an elegant hypothetical system that generates the apparent world from less apparent assumptions, as with the Newtonian revolution; or it may mean deducing non-obvious processes from everyday facts, as with the Darwinian revolution. Slobodkin proposes that the best intellectual work is done as if it were a game on a simplified playing field. He supplies serious arguments for considering the role of simplification and playfulness in all of our activities. The immediate effect of his unfailingly captivating essay is to throw open a new window on the world and to refresh our perspectives on matters of the heart and mind.
Download or read book Simplicity written by Craig Dilworth and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simplicity presents a new, wide-ranging philosophical theory, one that concerns how reality is conceived. In so doing it also provides a new logic with which to approach conceptual situations. In this book, Craig Dilworth replaces the dualistic, true/false approach of formal logic with a three-part basis for thought. This basis consists of the categories of simplicity, complexity, and nothingness. The category of simplicity is paradoxical, while that of complexity is unproblematic, and that of nothingness is self-contradictory. When applied to ontological categories, such as those of substance, self, or causality, these categories of reason can resolve, rather than solve, intellectual issues. The notion of perspective is integral to the simplicity way of thinking. A particular entity--such as the self--may be conceived as simple in one perspective, while being complex or nothing in another. Combined with the categories of the simplicity theory, Dilworth uses the notion of perspective to reveal a type of conceptual conflict that differs from contradiction. So, for example, simplicity better represents the relation between competing scientific theories--such as the wave and particle theories of radiation--as a form of perspectival incompatibility. The book distinguishes between two forms of simplicity: analytic and synthetic, which can respectively be conceived of as a point and a whole. Again, the notion of perspective is employed: what is analytically simple in one perspective may well be synthetically simple in another. In this book, the simplicity way of thinking is applied to intellectual issues in philosophy, set theory, and physics. These applications show how simplicity can provide real insight into a wide variety of conceptually complex situations.
Download or read book Deep Simplicity written by John Gribbin and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2009-08-27 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Gribbin takes us through the basics with his customary talent for accessibility and clarity' Sunday Times The world around us can be a complex, confusing place. Earthquakes happen without warning, stock markets fluctuate, weather forecasters seldom seem to get it right - even other people continue to baffle us. How do we make sense of it all? In fact, John Gribbin reveals, our seemingly random universe is actually built on simple laws of cause and effect that can explain why, for example, just one vehicle braking can cause a traffic jam; why wild storms result from a slight atmospheric change; even how we evolved from the most basic materials. Like a zen painting, a fractal image or the pattern on a butterfly's wings, simple elements form the bedrock of a sophisticated whole. Synthesizing chaos and complexity theory for the perplexed, Deep Simplicity brilliantly illuminates the harmony underlying our existence.
Download or read book Simplicity s Simply the Best Sewing Book written by Anne Marie Soto and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Man Apart written by Peter Forbes and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A story of friendship, encouragement, and the quest to design a better world A Man Apart is the story—part family memoir and part biography—of Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow’s longtime friendship with Bill Coperthwaite (A Handmade Life), whose unusual life and fierce ideals helped them examine and understand their own. Coperthwaite inspired many by living close to nature and in opposition to contemporary society, and was often compared to Henry David Thoreau. Much like Helen and Scott Nearing, who were his friends and mentors, Coperthwaite led a 55-year-long “experiment in living” on a remote stretch of Maine coast. There he created a homestead of wooden, multistoried yurts, a form of architecture for which he was known around the world. Coperthwaite also embodied a philosophy that he called “democratic living,” which was about empowering all people to have agency over their lives in order to create a better community. The central question of Coperthwaite’s life was, “How can I live according to what I believe?” In this intimate and honest account—framed by Coperthwaite’s sudden death and brought alive through the month-long adventure of building with him what would turn out to be his last yurt—Forbes and Whybrow explore the timeless lessons of Coperthwaite’s experiment in intentional living and self-reliance. They also reveal an important story about the power and complexities of mentorship: the opening of one’s life to someone else to learn together, and carrying on in that person’s physical absence. While mourning Coperthwaite’s death and coming to understand the real meaning of his life and how it endures through their own, Forbes and Whybrow craft a story that reveals why it’s important to seek direct experience, to be drawn to beauty and simplicity, to create rather than critique, and to encourage others.
Download or read book The Unsettlers written by Mark Sundeen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An in-depth and compelling account of diverse Americans living off the grid.” —Los Angeles Times The radical search for the simple life in today’s America. On a frigid April night, a classically trained opera singer, five months pregnant, and her husband, a former marine biologist, disembark an Amtrak train in La Plata, Missouri, assemble two bikes, and pedal off into the night, bound for a homestead they've purchased, sight unseen. Meanwhile, a horticulturist, heir to the Great Migration that brought masses of African Americans to Detroit, and her husband, a product of the white flight from it, have turned to urban farming to revitalize the blighted city they both love. And near Missoula, Montana, a couple who have been at the forefront of organic farming for decades navigate what it means to live and raise a family ethically. A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of these new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for -- or create -- a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.
Download or read book Code Simplicity written by Max Kanat-Alexander and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2012-03-23 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good software design is simple and easy to understand. Unfortunately, the average computer program today is so complex that no one could possibly comprehend how all the code works. This concise guide helps you understand the fundamentals of good design through scientific laws—principles you can apply to any programming language or project from here to eternity. Whether you’re a junior programmer, senior software engineer, or non-technical manager, you’ll learn how to create a sound plan for your software project, and make better decisions about the pattern and structure of your system. Discover why good software design has become the missing science Understand the ultimate purpose of software and the goals of good design Determine the value of your design now and in the future Examine real-world examples that demonstrate how a system changes over time Create designs that allow for the most change in the environment with the least change in the software Make easier changes in the future by keeping your code simpler now Gain better knowledge of your software’s behavior with more accurate tests
Download or read book Simplicity Parenting written by Kim John Payne and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2009-08-25 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today’s busier, faster society is waging an undeclared war on childhood. With too much stuff, too many choices, and too little time, children can become anxious, have trouble with friends and school, or even be diagnosed with behavioral problems. Now internationally renowned family consultant Kim John Payne helps parents reclaim for their children the space and freedom that all kids need for their attention to deepen and their individuality to flourish. Simplicity Parenting offers inspiration, ideas, and a blueprint for change: • Streamline your home environment. Reduce the amount of toys, books, and clutter—as well as the lights, sounds, and general sensory overload. • Establish rhythms and rituals. Discover ways to ease daily tensions, create battle-free mealtimes and bedtimes, and tell if your child is overwhelmed. • Schedule a break in the schedule. Establish intervals of calm and connection in your child’s daily torrent of constant doing. • Scale back on media and parental involvement. Manage your children’s “screen time” to limit the endless deluge of information and stimulation. A manifesto for protecting the grace of childhood, Simplicity Parenting is an eloquent guide to bringing new rhythms to bear on the lifelong art of raising children.
Download or read book Everyday Simplicity written by Robert J. Wicks and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everybody talks spirituality. Here's how you can do something real and practical about achieving it.
Download or read book Simply the Best Sewing Book written by The Simplicity Pattern Company and published by Collins & Brown. This book was released on 2011-08-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published twenty years ago, this bestselling home sewing volume is known as the essential reference for all home sewers. Mindful of the fact that today's sewers want to be sure that they have access to the very latest developments, all material has been fully revised and updated. New sewing techniques and time-saving ideas have been introduced, product information has been updated and the projects reflect current fashion trends with even more children's clothing ideas included. This is the book for today’s sewers – the most comprehensive source for sewing information for both new and experienced sewers. Word count: 60,000
